Increases at mall will cause job losses - cafe owner

Laying off staff is the only way restaurant operator Joewi Hoerijanto says he can save his business if the Auckland Council raises rates by 130 per cent on the two Albany mall properties he rents.

Mr Hoerijanto will today join 145 other business tenants of Westfield Albany shopping centre in a protest against the rates bill for the centre rising from this year's $1.12 million to a proposed $3.2 million.

Westfield passes the centre's rates bill straight on to its tenants to pay.

"It's hard for me to swallow it," he said. "Especially when we are in this climate where we can't just increase our price because if we did our customers would not come.

"We are holding full-time and part-time jobs with the same hours, but from July it will be hard.

"I just got this news in the last couple of days and when I sit down to work out how we are going to cut costs I am worried because somebody is definitely going to lose their jobs."